Thursday’s strip was not available for preview, but I’m betting March will begin with a titanic explosion, followed by millions of multi-tentacled aliens descending on the town, their hearts twisted with evil and their minds bent on enslaving the world.

But first, we have to guess whether yesterday’s episode exhausted Tom Batiuk’s observations about grandparents and toddlers, and he’ll thus quickly pivot to his real interest (hint: it has to do with comic books), or if he figures he ought to squeeze out a few more pearls before getting to the good stuff (which has to do with comic books).

TB is throwing a dart in the opposite direction of the board here. The trend in children’s books isn’t cynical writing, it’s characters licensed from popular movies and television shows and/or 12-page $25 hardcovers “written” by celebrities and illustrated by people whose names you need a magnifying glass to find on the cover.

Interesting, Billy. That’s a trend we luckily seem to have missed with our kids (shoves Chelsea Clinton book under a magazine). While we’re on the subject, and just in case anyone here wasn’t aware of them, Berke Breathed’s kids’ books are pretty great as attested to by my daughter.

Real wry observation there BatHack. Someone’s “woman issues” have been showing as of late. But the bigger point is that this couldn’t possibly have any less to do with anything. This thing is almost three full weeks in and the premise is still speculative. Un-be-live-a-ble.

On the other side, Crankshaft does his yearly good deed. This should cancel out Batiuk’s unwitting hypocrisy. It does border on the precious for someone who piled on the drama because he thought that making people laugh was a cruel disservice to say what he says here but I don’t think that he’s bright enough to understand what he did.

And yet. His good deed bothers the crap out of me. First of all. How expensive are these second hand books? If Lillian is selling them for more than a few bucks she’s fleecing her customers.

Second of all, they’re second hand books. I’m guessing Lilian has them donated to her, or picks them up for pennies on the dollar.

I thought Lilian was letting her pay in installments so that the little girl would learn about earning and saving and feel pride and ownership in buying her own things with her own money. Lilian should have just given her the book outright if she is now willing to let Cranky pay in full in cash.

I think we have to face the possibility that this story is going to be like a Simpsons episode where something happens to set up the unrelated main plot and never gets mentioned again–in this case, Chester the Molester’s big secret message.

I hope not. It would be a waste of a good straw man if we’re just going to have another idiot plot that has Chien raked over the coals by proxy because she has enough self-respect to avoid being the victim of another garish and idiotic comic-themed wedding in which the bride has no idea who the person she’s dressed as is supposed to be.